Durango broke two real estate records in the first half of 2015 – a new high median home sales price at $440,000 and the largest number of homes sold at 101 – and La Plata County’s real estate market also hit a record median price at $350,000 in the same time period.
Much of that was driven by Durango, but the rest of the county’s sales were also strong.
None of the smaller towns and outlying areas have returned to pre-recession price levels. But, that may just indicate they are limited by low inventory, said John Wells, owner-broker of the Wells Group.
“Look at Ignacio,” he said. “There are not that many homes for sale there. There are five listed now, and two of them are under contract. Most people don’t buy in Ignacio unless they have some kind of connectivity there, family or work.”
Because of such low inventory, Ignacio’s median price as of June 30 was $147,787, up more than 15.9 percent over the same period in 2014 but significantly lower than the $210,000 peak in 2008.
Bayfield also peaked in 2008, with a median home price of $309,000. For the first half of 2015, the median was $272,000.
Limited inventory is also a problem in Bayfield and its outlying community of Forest Lakes, Wells said. Of the 30 residences listed in Bayfield, 17 are already under contract, leaving just 13 available.
“My house was on the market for six days,” said Matt Nyberg, who said the house he and his wife bought in 2010 recently sold for $270,000, close to the median price. The Nyberg family is planning to move into another house in the same Bayfield neighborhood as soon as it’s completed.
Bayfield is good for families, Wells said, because it has schools that test well.
“Unfortunately, if one or both parents work in Durango, it makes it very difficult if they’re 30 minutes away from their children’s schools,” he said, “not just for dropping off and picking up but attending special events and games.”
Forest Lakes, about 6 miles north of Bayfield, is another area seeing stronger sales in the northeast side of the county.
“The Forest Lakes market is really picking up,” Wells said. “At the height of the recession, there were 90 homes on the market there.”
Forest Lakes, where most of the houses on the market are listed under $400,000, is looking good to people who are finding Durango’s prices steep, he said.
“I had a couple who just retired from a suburb of Chicago, and they sold their 3,000-square-foot house there for $300,000,” Wells said. “They’re in the honeymoon phase of retirement, traveling around visiting family and looking at where they want to settle. When they saw how little they could get in Durango for $300,000, they looked at Forest Lakes and asked, ‘How much house can I get there?”’
The median prices in other areas of La Plata County are too skewed by individual sales in the first two quarters of 2015 to be able to track trends, but 515 residential properties of all types were sold in the county.
abutler@durangoherald.com
